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charbax · 2 years

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Here Comes a Thought (Battleborn Fic)

Here Comes a Thought (1536 words) by charbax Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Battleborn (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alani & Toby (Battleborn) Characters: Alani (Battleborn), Toby (Battleborn) Additional Tags: Meditation Sessions, Spoilers, for the character backstories, anxiety mention, unsanitary mention, please read fic notes for context its not anything like. body fluids tbh., death mention, accident mention, body trauma mention, Songfic, ...is it? Summary:

A meditation session between two beings with anxiety. Alani & Toby friendship fic inspired by tenta--prince's pic, inspired by an anon. https://charmemes.tumblr.com/post/175946413712/thanks-to-whoever-sent-me-this-not-my-best-but

Fic underneath readmore, otherwise AO3 link here!

Outside of the rogues, Toby rarely trusted people.

Ok, Ernest was an outlier, but only because he was actually really nice and was supportive of Toby, in that hard, commander way (ie. zealous use of 'Maggot!' and shouting). Honestly, it was helping Toby's self confidence make leaps and bounds ever since he signed up with the Battleborn, even if it threw him off sometimes.

But the commando bird was on a mission to Bliss, recapturing an old UPR base, and his own flock - group, he reminded himself, the Rogues were definitely not aviants, even if sometimes they felt closer than his own biological family - were on Fortune's Favour, not onboard Nova. With this kind of thing, they would be the first he'd go waddling to, but alas, there was only him and a scattering of others preseny. And while they were on varying scales of niceness (Bene-jerk notwithstanding), the thought of approaching them with this problem made him want to keel over and die instead.

Hence, he opted to wandering around the hulls of the ship like a feathery spectre, checking for faults, because faults could lead to holes, and holes could lead to failures, and failures could lead to systems malfunctioning, and systems malfunctioning could lead to Nova spiralling out of control and crash-landing onto one of the few planets left in the system, resulting in the fiery death of everyone onboard…

Even anxiety can ruin the easiest of tasks. Toby cursed. There also seemed to be a correlation between his stress levels and swearing, if the string of worries and extremities leaving his beak were anything to go by.

In fact, he was concentrating so hard on calming himself down that he didn't notice that he had barged into someone's space until he heard polite coughing from above, then a voice said, "Uh...you ok there?"

His beak clamped embarrassingly fast as he finally took in his surroundings. He must've stumbled into the water reservoir, judging by the water tank. The large room was windowless and dark, lit only by the blue glow of the tank in the lower half. Perched on top of a floating platform was one of the newer members of their motley crew, who was blinking down at him. It took another second of panicking to remember her name; Alani, the monk from Akopos. Outside of name and general calm nature, that's all he knew about her. After all, he's only responsible for checking the background of potential rogues, not the rest of the battleborn. That’s Ghalt’s job.

"It’s-it's nothing, miss Alani, sorry to disturb you, it won't happen again, sorry." He stuttered out, the word running together into one, conjugated disaster.

He was already backing out of the room before Alani replied, "It's ok! It's just a bit weird how you just walked in here. Without knocking."

"Sorry again."

"Wait! I mean," she sighed. "I meant like how preoccupied you were. Unless you normally barge it to people's rooms un-announced?" She unhelpfully added.

Toby made a noise of embarrassment, “Yeah, I don’t normally don’t do that. I was, uh, busy thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing really. Just me being my dumb self and worrying about nothing, so sorry to bother you again, miss Alani!”

Alani was silent for a moment, from contemplation or awkward shock (Toby's money was on the latter), then she said "Want to sit with me?"

He blinked. She patted the space next to her with emphasis, the movement setting the platform bobbing gently on the water's surface. Would it...be ok? He could always just say no...and end up disappointing her more than he already did right now. With that in mind, he took a deep, fortifying breath, and scurried up the ladder on the side of the tank. It was easy paddling across the short distance to the platform, with him sparing only a moment to voice a concern.

"Uh, this is the ships water, right?"

"Yup." She confirmed.

"...won't we end up drinking this?"

"Yup.” She repeated. “Don't worry though, my nanobots- I mean, cleansing energy, gets rid of pollutants. They work a lot better than any water filter."

"But won't we be drinking them too?"

"Yeah, they’re probably inside your body already."

Toby had nothing to say to that apart from a quick face of revulsion. He didn't say anything else however as he pulled himself to Alani's metal island and gingerly planted herself next to her. "Okay, I'm here. Now what miss?"

"Meditate with me? Just copy what I do." And she closed her eyes, folding her hands pose-perfect onto her crossed legs. Aviant limbs weren't exactly great for crossing legs and twildling thumbs, so Toby let his flippers flop onto his outstretched legs, one on top of the other.

"Like this?" He asked. She nodded, then her shoulders rose and fell in a controlled breath. Like a bad habit, Toby's mind leapt to the worst conclusion of even the ever patient monk losing patience, and he already prepared to leap from the platform and make a second attempt to an ungraceful exit. He was stopped by Alani’s sheepish smile.

"Oops, sorry. I meant breathe slowly." She looked as sheepish as she could with one eye still closed. With a silent breath of relief, Toby inhaled and exhaled. Then repeated. And repeated.

She stayed silent, letting the only sound be the echo of dripping water. Toby was aching to fill the quiet with something, anything, extending but not limited to the non-existent weather on the ship, but miss Alani didn’t look like she wanted to be disturbed, so he sucked it up and tried to meditate as she said. His thoughts, as always, started swirling again, like a shard storm that decided that it wasn't done wrecking havoc on a science dwarf's laboratory just yet. Before long, he was squirming in his spot, struggling to remain still like the monk next to him. He was frustrated too. Frustration at himself, at the meditation, even the tiniest bit at Alani for not seemingly solving his problem. That last one he shoved back down even if one small, dark bit really wanted to let it fester and grow. And that wherein was the problem - he was bad at recognising what was his fault and what was the fault of others, so it was easier to lump everything together and blame himself even for the smallest of things, because, in the end, it meant he could fix it, and he wouldn't be kicked out again for not fixing it. It meant that he was still wanted by those around him, because what was he without others needing him-?

That’s when he heard of the sound of water churning instead. "Please don't freak out." Was her only warning. The water rose above them in a dome, smoothing over and clearing like glass. Despite the way it enclosed over him, Toby felt anything but anxious. Rather, it seemed that the room, heck, even the entire ship, had faded away, leaving them in a small bubble of just him and Alani. Like every problem, every worry, was washed away, if for the moment, to be displayed for his perusal.

"I thought it might help if you keep thinking of your worries being outside of the bubble.” Alani said.

The words burst out of Toby’s mouth before he could stop them. “But they still get to me.”

“Yeah, and that sucks. Things get to me too.” Alani admitted. “But I think, hey, I got my bubble. They’re just...thoughts in here. Like butterflies, I guess. Man I miss butterflies.

“Ugh, I’m getting distracted. I got my bubble! You got a bubble too. I don’t think you can actually conjure one out of water, unless avians can and I just didn’t get the memo. But you got one. And when the worries come fluttering back, bring it up, mentally. You are here. You're here. You're going to be ok.”

And the weird thing was that Toby actually...started to believe her. He can’t will away the anxieties, otherwise this would be the perfect universe, but it’s a lot easier to look at them from this side of the bubble. Through the watery lens, he could imagine what would happen if his Berg malfunctioned in the middle of battle and not stop the shot that might take Whiskey's life. Or if a mine detonated at the wrong moment, catching Shayne and Aurox in the midst of their blood run. Not only failing the Rogues, but the entire Battleborn. They were terrible, horrible images, but with the blue tint on, his mind already picked out some solutions – increase the frequency of the maintenance rounds. Train with Shayne and Aurox more to get a feel for their behaviour on the field.

Trust them, instead of bottling it up and letting the hurricane carry him away. Of course, that's easier said than done.

"Miss Alani?" He ventured quietly. "Can I...come back whenever it gets bad?"

"Sure! Just knock first."

Yeah. He can do that. "Thanks. For helping a little."

Alani just smiled gently, and closed her eyes again. He followed suit and let himself be.

'I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.'

#battleborn #battlebarn #alani ( battleborn )#toby ( battleborn )#charfic

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an-aussie-button-masher · 2 years

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The Best of the Worst: Five of Gaming’s Best-Written Villains

Thanos. Darth Vader. The Joker. It’s no secret that a story is often defined by their antagonist - when thinking of memorable characters, a lot of the time, you’ll think of the bad guy. Good villains can make or break a story, and the best-written baddies are usually the ones that last in people’s memories. Of course, not all memorable villains need to have complex backstories and motivations - Bowser’s just been kidnapping Peach over and over for 37 years and he’s practically the face of video game villains. While there’s nothing wrong with such one-dimensional antagonists, there are plenty of more complex, engaging gaming villains as well. I’ve assembled a small list of them here; this is hardly a comprehensive list, but by the end you’ll see just how interesting these gaming bad guys can be. Spoilers abound below!

Handsome Jack (Borderlands 2) “It’s cute that y’all think you’re the heroes of this little adventure, but you’re not. You’re bandits. You’re the bad guys, and I am the goddamn hero.” You can’t discuss interesting video game villains without talking about the psychopathic CEO himself, Borderlands’ Handsome Jack. He’s among the most infamous gaming antagonists in the world, and for good reason; his charming and entertaining persona mixed with his horrifically twisted actions make him a classic “love to hate” kind of character. His popularity even led to being the focus of an entire prequel game detailing his backstory and plenty of references throughout the rest of the franchise and beyond. While many villains tend to think their actions are justified and pretend they’re the “good guy”, Jack takes it a step further by being so deluded by his own incredible narcissism that he genuinely believes he’s the hero of Borderlands, and everyone in his way - including the actual protagonists, the playable Vault Hunters - are just filthy violent bandits. He thinks that summoning a godlike creature to commit mass genocide on a planetary scale is the heroic thing to do, and doesn’t think twice about imprisoning and enslaving his own daughter to further his goals! All these abhorrent actions are done with a smile on his face and constant jokes and petty threats, as though the main characters are barely worth taking seriously. Case in point: one of his most famous monologues is about him laughing himself silly while scooping a man’s eyes out with a spoon, all while mocking the player and telling them to just “let the hero win already”. Nice guy!

Flowey (UNDERTALE) “Did you think you were the only one with that power? The power to reshape the world, purely by your own determination. The ability to play God! The ability to SAVE.” If you had the power to quick-save and reload the real world like it was a video game, what would you do? Try to fix your mistakes and right wrongs, or wreak havoc before reloading and getting away with it without consequence? In UNDERTALE, the main antagonist Flowey shows just how terrifying it can be when a villain shares the same meta powers as the actual player. He initially seems friendly and harmless - the first character you meet, and he’s just a happy little flower, right? Well, it’s not long before he proves to be the most dangerous and sociopathic character in the game. He’s aware of the player saving and reloading, and calls you out on certain choices like saving other characters you’ve killed - or going back to kill characters you previously spared. Eventually he gains the power to save over the player’s file, deliberately crashing the game and saving over your own death just to show how helpless you (and any other video game character) are in the face of such power. Most of his backstory is only found in the game’s “evil” path, the Genocide Route, so to really learn about him you’ll need to prove that you’re even more twisted than he is…and he won’t let you forget about it in future playthroughs either.

Andrew Ryan (Bioshock) “In the end, what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No, a man chooses…a slave obeys.” “Would You Kindly” - a well-known phrase within the gaming community, one that accompanies a famous plot twist dropped by Andrew Ryan, one of the main antagonists of Bioshock. Throughout the game, the player is directed all over the fallen, violent city of Rapture by their “ally” Atlas, with no choice but to do exactly as he asks. This is pretty standard affair for linear story games, of course, but Bioshock gives this normally-ignored gaming rule a dark spin with just three simple words. Andrew Ryan, the creator and leader of Rapture, reveals at the end of the game that the player’s character, Jack, is actually brainwashed to respond to the phrase “would you kindly”, a phrase that up until then had simply seemed to be a quirk of Atlas’ speech pattern. Future playthroughs are given a completely different feel after this reveal, now that the player knows Atlas is actually manipulating them for the entire game. I chose Andrew Ryan as the antagonist to write about here instead of Atlas because he’s still ultimately the reason behind most of the game’s conflict, and his final scene is one of the most harrowing moments in the series. Shortly after revealing the player’s trigger phrase, he uses it against you - ordering you to run about his office in a cutscene, to really drive home how completely helpless you’ve actually been all game. After that, he even orders you to kill him! As the player whacks away at Ryan’s skull with his own golf club, it’s not so much a victory for the player as it is for Ryan, proving he was right all along: Jack, and in turn the player, is but a slave, with no choice but to obey. Keep that in mind next time you’re railroaded into following orders in any other story game…

Alister Azimuth (Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time) “You ask all these questions, ask yourself this: how relevant is the past when it can be changed? Your father would have said not very.” When a heroic character turns bad, it’s usually because their motivations have changed. They decide the villain is right, they decide whatever they’re fighting for isn’t worth it, that sort of thing. This isn’t the case for General Alister Azimuth, however; for the entirety of Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, Azimuth remains steadfast in his goals from start to finish, while it’s the main heroes Ratchet and Clank that change their minds. Azimuth is initially a mentor figure to Ratchet, and blames himself for the exile of their species, the Lombaxes. He and Ratchet work together to find the Great Clock, a massive time-keeping device at the centre of the universe (give or take fifty feet), with Azimuth intending to reverse the mistakes of his past and bring back the Lombaxes - including Ratchet’s lost family. When Ratchet & Clank learn that the Great Clock is not a time machine, and that tampering with it will have catastrophic consequences, they decide against Azimuth’s plan. Unfortunately, Azimuth is so focused and single-minded on his goal that he ignores the duo’s warnings, and when they try to stop him he turns against them at the end of the game. Azimuth is a very headstrong, reckless and aggressive character that believes he can brute-force his way through any issue - just like Ratchet was, before he met Clank all those years ago. Narrative foils often make for the most compelling villains! Ratchet likely would have ended up just like Azimuth had he not met Clank.

Lothar Rendain (Battleborn) “Don’t you see? We needn’t all perish! We can save something! What value is life that is already condemned? What are you fighting for?!” Doing whatever it takes to survive isn’t exactly an uncommon motivation - it’s a pretty basic demand of living, after all. When it’s the end of the universe as we know it and you take honour out of the question, however, it can lead to some not-so-heroic decisions. Battleborn brings us to a universe dying at the hands of the Varelsi, inter-dimensional horrors eating every star in space, and introduces Lothar Rendain: a battle-hardened military commander that has his species’ survival at the top of his priorities. So, what does he do in the face of seemingly unavoidable death? Make a deal with it, even at the cost of everything and everyone else in the universe. Rendain’s motivations are at least understandable - in his words, he’s “saving something instead of nothing”, and it may as well be his own people. It’s just a shame he goes about it in the most despicable fashion possible. He’s sided his forces with the Varelsi and turned on the rest of the surviving universe, aiding the Varelsi hordes in exchange for them ensuring his own species’ survival once the last light winks out. After thousands of years battling an apparently unstoppable foe, you’d probably be desperate to figure out a different solution too. Personality-wise, he stands out as a darkly serious villain compared to the more chaotic and gung-ho heroes, almost as if he was pulled from a different story entirely. He avoids all the usual mistakes of being the “bad guy” too; he doesn’t needlessly kill any underlings that fail him, he takes any advantage he can get in a fight (like siccing a dozen gigantic bosses on the heroes at once instead of playing fair), and he even gives them chances to join forces with him in the interest of saving his own troop’s numbers. All in all, he’s a cunning antagonist with reasonable motivations, yet still so completely irredeemable and evil that finally defeating him at the end is just as cathartic for the player as it is for the heroes of the game themselves.

All this goes to show that all the interesting motives and engaging characterisations doesn’t always make for a nice person. There’s hundreds of fascinating and memorable villains out there, far too many to fit in a single article. If you have any suggestions of engaging evil-doers that fit this list, feel free to let me know! Thanks for reading!